Sure, hyperbole, but the role of government is to regulate when the externalities of a transaction aren't being accounted for within the transaction.
It turns out that banning tobacco advertising did not lead to the end of Formulae 1 and making targeted advertising optional won't lead to end of social media either.
Huh? My worry here is that privacy regulation will reduce the choices available to consumers. If it's legal for some services to offer "pay with ads + fraud detection" and others to offer "pay with your money" we can see what sort of services consumers prefer. In most areas online it turns out its the former. Regulation removes the first option.
> you want that business model for yourself
I'm not interested in running this sort of business; while I used to work in ads I'm not planning to go back. My main perspective here is as someone who uses and enjoys many ad-supported sites (including HN) and doesn't want to see them regulated out of existence or behind paywalls.
Which means that in the future if there's a service I might want to use which is in this category and if I don't mind having my data used to personalize my advertising, I don't have a choice: the service won't exist.